Dr. Stanko Sielski (18911958): Physician, scientist, humanist

Received: 23 November 2015

Accepted: 27 November 2015

Key words: Stanko Sielski History of

medicine Archaeology Ethnology Bosnia and Herzegovina.

This work presents the results of research into the life and work ofDr. Stanko Sielski, related to his professional, scientific and humanitarian work. He was born in Graanica, Bosnia and Herzegovina(BH) in1891, to a family of Polish origins. He attended high schoolin Travnik and completed his studies of medicine in Vienna in 1919.During the First World War he served on the frontlines with the Austro-Hungarian army. He began his service as a doctor in Konjic, Prozor and Glamo, and then worked in Varcar Vakuf, Zenica, Travnik,Biha, Banja Luka, Sarajevo and Tuzla. At that time in BH living conditions were very bad, the level of education of the people insufficient,there were many epidemics of infectious diseases, and the mortality ofthe population was high. Dr. Stanko Sielski made a significant contribution to treating the sick, preventing various diseases and the healtheducation of the people. In the realm of the history of medicine in BA,he researched the life and work of doctors from previous generations,the work of medical institutions, old medical manuscripts written inArabic, Persian and Turkish, folk beliefs about the origins and treatment of a variety of illnesses, and the role of herbal medicine and amulets in treating the sick. In addition, he undertook research in the fieldsof archaeology, ethnology and sociology. He published the results ofhis research in scholarly journals. In the Second World War he savedthe lives of many Jewish doctors and their families from persecutionin concentration camps, and as a result in 2014 he was posthumouslydeclared Righteous Among the Nations. Conclusion. Dr. StankoSielski, alongside his work as a doctor, was also involved in a varietyof scientific research and publication work, which contributed to thepreservation and a better understanding of the material and spiritualheritage of BH.

IntroductionIt will soon be 125 years since the birth ofDr. Stanko Sielski, the physician, humanistand scientist, who is worthy of our interest,not only in the field of medicine, but also inthe fields of ethnology, ethnography, archaeology and sociology. He was a man, led byhis feelings, who helped people in variousways, regardless of their social status, eth-

nic and religious affiliation, and sometimes

even regardless of the current moral valuesof the environment he was working in.The majority of the working life of Dr.Stanko Sielski was marked by the social andeconomic consequences of the First andSecond World Wars. At that time in Bosniaand Herzegovina (BH) the living conditionswere very bad, the level of education of thepeople poor, the hygiene of the population,

Copyright 2015 by the Academy of Sciences and Arts of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

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especially in the villages, was at a low level,

infectious diseases frequently took on thecharacteristics of epidemics, and the resulting mortality of the population, especially children, was high. The life of society,in many aspects, was based on customs,which were deemed to be the best and onlyway to behave, and quackery (folk medicine) was deeply rooted.Although he was a physician, who madea significant contribution to improving public health in BH in his time, a humanist anda fruitful cultural and scientific worker, noone has yet undertaken a thorough analysis,to research his life and work systematically,and present it to the wider cultural public ofBH, but also the public of the wider environment. As a result his broad and varied opusof great importance for his own country, hasmainly remained unknown, or is only mentioned in fragments.This paper presents the results of research into the life and work of Dr. StankoSielski, relating to his professional, scientificand humanitarian work.

Childhood and education

Stanko Sielski was born in Graanica, BH,in 1891, to a family of Polish origin, whomoved to Bosnia from Tarnopol (Galica) atthe end of the 19th century. His father Stanislav was a geometer in civil service, and hismother Marija, nee Waldher, was a homemaker. His father was frequently sent towork in different places in Bosnia, so Stankospent his childhood in Graanica, Zenicaand Travnik. He attended high school inTravnik, and after graduating in 1910 he enrolled to study medicine in Vienna, where atthe same time he studied painting and thehistory of art for two years (1). During hisstudies, he served as a soldier on the frontline in the Austro-Hungarian army duringthe First World War, and later as a medic,working as a doctor. After the end of the war170

in 1918 he was discharged from the army

with the rank of Lieutenant. He then continued his study of medicine in Vienna andgraduated on 16th June 1919 (1).

Professional workAfter graduating from the Medical Faculty,Dr. Stanko Sielski remained in Vienna until1st April 1919, when he worked as a Lieutenant in the Military Mission Service in theKingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (1).He began his state service as a doctor on 16thNovember 1919 in the District Administration of Konjic, Prozor and Glamo, wherehe worked until 30th November 1920, as ahonorary doctor, specialized in epidemiology combating typhoid and smallpox. Afterthat, until 19th February 1924, he worked asa district doctor in Varcar Vakuf (MrkonjiGrad), then he was appointed to Zenica inthe same capacity until 12th November 1924,after which he continued to work in Travnikas a district doctor, the local sanitary officerand health advisor, until 3rd November 1931.By a decree of the Royal Ministry of Public Health of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia of3rd November 1931, Dr. Stanko Sielski wastransferred to Biha, where up to 19th July1941 he worked as a health advisor, andsenior advisor and manager of the PublicHealth Centre (1).In all these places, the sanitary and epidemiological situation was very severe, infectious diseases usually took on the characteristics of epidemics, and the hygiene of thepopulation, especially in the villages, was ata very low level. As a physician Dr. StankoSielski made a very significant contributionin treating the sick, but also in the field ofcombating infectious diseases, parasite andfungal infections and pediculosis, and inproviding health education for the people.His special contribution was in treating andpreventing endemic syphilis in Biha (2).

Dr. Stanko Sielski worked in Banja Luka

during the Second World War (19.7.194125.8.1944). He was the head of the Institutefor Combating Endemic Syphilis (the Institute) (Pictures 1, 2), which was founded bythe Independent State of Croatia, in orderto root out this disease once and for all, asquickly as possible from Bosnian villages (3).

Picture 3 An improvised in-field clinic of the Institute

for combating endemic syphilis.

Picture 1 The building of the Institute for combating

endemic syphilis in Banja Luka 1941-1945.

Picture 2 Dr. Stanko Sielski at the time when he was

working at the Institute for combating endemicsyphilis in Banja Luka.

The seat of the Institute was in Banja

Luka, but the actual work took place throughthe health institutes of that time, the publichealth centres, and other health institutionsin BH, sometimes also improvised in-fieldclinics in the remote Bosnian villages (Picture 3) (4).

Doctors from the Institute were mainly

Jews from Croatia and BH, who had alreadybeen, or should have been deported to labor camps or death camps. Since the doctors were mainly accommodated in smallBosnian towns where there were no permanent or occasional doctors, they treated thepopulation not only for syphilis but also forother illnesses.Dr. Stanko Sielski worked in Banja Lukain the relatively short, but extremely complex and difficult period of the war. He alsoheld the function of a managing civil servantin a state which from its very outset, following the example of the Third Reich, acceptedand made law the National Socialist interpretation of race, which was mainly aimedagainst Jews and Roma, but also all thosewho did not agree with Ustasha politics (5).It was precisely in these circumstances thathis altruistic character reached its full expression. He supported the Peoples Liberation Movement with hygienic and medicalmaterials, and he enabled some Home Guard(Domobran) soldiers to transfer to Partisanunits. His role in saving Jewish doctors, theemployees of the Institute, from persecutionin concentration camps was extremely im171

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portant. According to the oral and written

statements given to the writer of this textby the last living doctor from the Institute,Dr. Teodor Grner from Zagreb, Dr. StankoSielski saved him and many other Jewishdoctors and their families, whereby he alsorisked his own life (6). This testimony, alongwith the proposal (7) by the author of thistext, was a crucial document for the posthumous declaration of Stanko Sielski as Righteous among the Nations at the end of 2014.This prestigious award by the State of Israelis awarded to non-Jews who exposed theirown lives to danger during the Holocaustto save Jews from persecution by the Nazisand their collaborators. However, when thisdecision was rendered an unforgivable errorwas made, since Dr. Stanko Sielski was designated as Righteous of the State of Croatia,whereby BH was overlooked, that is the statein which he was born, where he was educated and in which he worked productively tothe end of his life.On 31st July 1944, Dr. Stanko Sielskiwas transferred to service in the Ministry ofPublic Education of the Independent Stateof Croatia, that is to the Faculty of Medicineof the Croatian University in Sarajevo (8).While he was still working in Banja Lukaat the beginning of 1944, he was elected tobe private assistant professor of the Chair ofHistory of Medicine of the Zagreb Facultyof Medicine, in the subject of Folk Medicine(9), and soon after that he was also elected tobe regular professor in the subject of Historyof Medicine at the Faculty of Medicine in Sarajevo (10) and the first dean of that faculty(11). He worked as the dean of the Faculty ofMedicine in Sarajevo from 1st August 1944to 13th May 1945. After the liberation of Sarajevo in April 1945 and the hand over of theFaculty to the new authorities on 13th May1945, he was sent to work on the DistrictPeoples Committee in Banja Luka (12). InJune of the same year, he was sent to Kozaraas part of a hygiene and epidemilogical team172

of the First Army, in order to help combat

typhus (13). He stayed in Banja Luka until2nd March 1946 when he was transferred toTuzla (14).In Tuzla he worked as the head of thehealth and epidemiology centre, later renamed the Institute of Hygiene, right upuntil his death on 31st October 1958. Thiswas the period immediately after the Second World War, and the scope of work ofthat health institution covered the regionof north-east BH. The social and economicsituation in the state was difficult, the population were impoverished and exhausted after four years of war; hygiene, especially invillage areas, was at a very low level, and epidemics of various infectious diseases werefrequent, which contributed to the fact thatmortality, especially amongst children, washigh. Dr. Stanko Sielski, who was sometimesthe only physician at such an important andsignificant health institution, made an important contribution to improving health inthat area together with his co-workers. Hedied at the age of 68 in Zagreb, where he wasburied in Mirogoj cemetery.

The scientific and publication work

Dr. Stanko Sielski was involved in scientificresearch work throughout his working life.Although he worked mainly in small townsand villages, this did not prevent him, farfrom major institutions, from taking a livelyinterest in the medical profession, and precisely in those small Bosnian towns, and hefound subjects to satisfy his interest in research, subjects which were sometimes veryclose to him, and sometimes in completecontrast to his profession.In the realm of the history of medicinein BH, he researched the life and work ofdoctors from previous generations, (15), thework of medical institutions, (16), old medical manuscripts written in Arabic, Persianand Turkish, (17), folk beliefs about the ori-

gins and treatment of a variety of illnesses,

(18-22) and the role of amulets and folkmedicine books in treating the sick (23, 24).Of particular benefit for archaeological,ethnological and ethnographic science inBH was the constant contact and collaboration between Dr. Stanko Sielski and themuseums in the places where he worked(25-28), his references to new archaeologicalfinds and his assistance to museum expertsduring their in-field work (29, 30), as wellas his research in the area around Travnikand epe (31) and Biha (32, 33). There aremany written documents and other exhibits in museums in BH and Croatia bearingtestimony to this (34-37). In the final yearsof his life, Dr. Stanko Sielski was an associate of the Yugoslav Lexicographical Institutein Zagreb, in writing the first volume of theMedical Encyclopaedia, which was published in 1958 (38).By careful research, I have found evidence to establish that Dr. Stanko Sielskipublished 20 papers: 16 from the realm ofmedicine, two from archaeology, and oneeach from the fields of ethnography and sociology (39). However, this does not meanthat there are not other works by him forwhich I have not yet been able to find documentation. The lectures are also not listedhere which Dr. Stanko Sielski presented atvarious professional congresses, symposiaand other conferences, because I was notable to find documentation for them, although I learned about them from a varietyof reports and the daily press.The paper: Brills disease. IV. Study of 26cases in Yugoslavia of which he is one of theco-authors, was presented to the Epidemiology Section of the American Public HealthAssociation at the Seventy-ninth AnnualMeeting in San Francisco, California, on October 30th, 1951 and published in The American Journal of Public Health (40). It is so interesting that it deserves to have a separatearticle written and published about it. Oth-

erwise, all his other articles, published in the

Bosnian language, are worthy of attention,however, the best insight into his entire workin research is given by the articles Dr. JustinKarlinski, Old Turkish and Arabic Medical Manuscripts in Bosnia and Herzegovina,Amulets, Archaeological Finds in the Areaof Travnik and epe and Our VillageGolubi a contribution to research intohealth in the village and life there, and theytherefore deserve a special mention here.The article: Dr. Justin Karlinski, whichDr. Stanko Sielski published in 1953 in thejournal, Higijena: asopis za higijenu, mikrobiologiju, epidemiologiju i sanitarnu tehniku(Hygiene, journal for hygiene, microbiology,epidemiology and sanitary technology) (15)was the result of the interest of Dr. StankoSielski in the life and work of that physician.That interest was awakened in him by articleswritten by Dr. Justin Karlinski, which Dr.Stanko Sielski read whilst leafing througha copy of the journal Glasnik Zemaljskogmuzeja u Sarajevu (The Herald of the National Museum in Sarajevo), much earlierthan the time when he decided to writeabout this famous doctor in BH. It is interesting how Dr. Stanko Sielski came upon thecarefully preserved documentation of Dr.Justin Karlinski. After arriving in Tuzla, hemet Mrs. Marcela Karlinski, the widow of Dr.Justin Karlinski and their daughter, Zosja,then Mrs. Opitz. From them he learned thatDr. Justin Karlinski, alongside his practice asa doctor, during his work in Bosnia had alsobeen involved in scientific research work,and they had kept six hard covered volumes,comprising copies of his articles written invarious languages and printed in variousEuropean journals, which formed both hisprivate and official documentation. At hisrequest, Mrs. Marcela Karlinski allowed Dr.Stanko Sielski to examine these documents,and he, after he had studied them in detail,wrote the article about his life and work. Dr.Justin Karlinski would have been completely173

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forgotten in BH, if Dr. Stanko Sielski had

not written that article, which comprises 14pages of densely typed text, with a pictureof Dr. Justin Karlinski, and a list of his 80publications written in the form of references. The text is a studious and well summarized analysis of the life and work of theinteresting and unusual personality of Dr.Justin Karlinski. It is not necessary to go intomore detail about this article here becausethat would be a summary of something thathas already been summarized, but I warmlyrecommend it to those who are interested inhow a highly educated physician and scholarlived and worked in BH at the end of the 19thand the beginning of the 20th century.The article: Old Turkish and ArabicMedical Manuscripts in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which Dr. Stanko Sielski publishedin the book Iz Hrvatske medicinske prolosti(From the Medical History of Croatia) in1954 (17), did not occur spontaneously, butwas the fruit of his many years of systematically collecting and researching historicaldata, various documents, manuscripts, articles and books, which were used long agoin Bosnia as a written source of knowledgefor treating the sick. The article comprises 16pages of dense, type-written text and has fourillustrations. At the end of the article there isa chapter that explains the foreign words usedand a list of literature. Although the article isnot systematized in the sense of having titles and sub-titles, it is written in an orderlymanner with recognisable paragraphs, andthe text itself forms a well connected whole,which is easy to read and interesting.On the first page, in the first paragraph,Dr. Stanko Sielski indicates the motives andreasons for writing this piece. This is how hedescribes it: Loyalty to this country, whereI was born, and have lived and worked, dictated these lines to me, where I will describebriefly the lives of some old eastern physicians and their work, which I have foundin Bosnia. Later, also on the first page, he174

writes about Bosnia: There are few places

in the world where contrasts have so obviously come into conflict. Through the agesfortified cities and towers have stood likewreaths around the borders of our republic.On this heroic battlefield and country, inwhich at one time everyone carried arms tobe able to defend their golden freedom, ourpeople fought and fell through the ages, andthe innumerable memorial stones are thesilent witnesses to plague, famine and war.The old memorials and walls are overgrownwith brush and creeping vines, and the windblows away the few reminders of those whoworked, and as a result of historical events,ploughed hard furrows in the lives of theirblood brothers.At the end of the introductory part ofthe article, which comprises a text of morethan three pages, Dr. Stanko Sielski writesthat the purpose of the article was to present to our historians how oriental medicalbooks were studied, revealing many writers,previously unknown to us, and includingoriginal Bosnian ideas, since, as he writes,the Bosnian scribes, at the very least, whenthey were copying the oriental manuscripts,added their own personal comments tothem, their own experience, and their ownmethods of treatment.Most of the remainder of the text relatesto extensive or brief analyses of individualmedical manuscripts found in BH. Theseanalyses include brief or extensive biographical data on the authors of individual pieces,and there is also a detailed description of thework itself, in which he as a doctor emphasizes and comments on interesting chapters,and sometimes presents them verbatim inhis text and links them to medical practiceof his time.Dr. Stanko Sielski pays particular attention to the text written in the margins,known as marginalia. This is to be expectedfrom him, because the margins containednotes and comments by unknown local

scribes, who were to Dr. Stanko Sielski interesting, modest and extremely importantcharacters. He frequently points out theirBosnian origins, which is also to be expectedof him, because at all times he was primarilyinterested in Bosnia. In this way Dr. StankoSielski dealt with 7 medical works. At the endof the article he thanks his friend, Prof. Abdurahman oki from Tuzla, and Prof. Dr.akir Sikiri from Sarajevo, the well-knownBosnian Orientalist, for the assistance provided in translating those manuscripts.In the article Amulets published in1941, in the publication Etnografska istraivanja i graa III (Ethnographic Researchand Materials, III) by the Croatian State Ethnographic Museum in Zagreb in 1941 (23)Dr. Stanko Sielski, as a proficient researcher,and a thorough and widely educated intellectual, describes various aspects of various items - from amulets and spells, toapotropaic scriptures, which helped peoplein various forms of trouble, or protectedthose who used them from different formsof evil, objects which he collected while hewas working as a doctor, mainly from theBosnian Frontier (Bosanska krajina), and hegave them or sold them to the EthnographicMuseum in Zagreb. One of those objects isshown in Picture 4.Already at the beginning of this article,Dr. Stanko Sielski, with enviable interest, unravels and explains folk beliefs about objectswith talisman powers, telling how theseobjects had an important role in our folkmedicine and beliefs. He attempts, on thebasis of the knowledge he acquired duringhis many years of research, to categorize anddefine the differences between true amulets,amulets against spells, talismans and similarobjects, stating thereby that it was difficultto differentiate them, or even impossible todefine clear boundaries between them. Hedescribes apotropaic scriptures, stating thatthey were adjusted to the religion of thosewearing them, and how previously the cus-

Picture 4 Enamluk, a container for texts from the

Quran (enam) made from silver leaf, decorated withfiligree, amethysts and coral (against spells). Pendants more recent. Allegedly once the propertyof a captain from Tuzla in Travnik. Ethnographic Museum in Zagreb, inv. no. 13698.

tom had been that a hodja wouldisto write

them for Christians or Christian priests forMuslims, but that had already become a rarity, because Catholic and Orthodox priestshad stopped writing apotropaic scriptureslong before, whilst hodjas still did so.With an enviable and undisputed feeling for research into these items with mysterious power, Dr. Stanko Sielski describeswhat apotropaic scriptures were for, whatthey looked like, their size and the material they were written on, the writing implements used and the way they were written,and the places on the body where they wereworn, which often reveals the essence of thewritten text. They frequently included statements by those who wrote them, or the people who wore them. In this way, through 49pictures, showing more than 100 items withaccompanying texts, he describes the various items used by the people of the BosnianFrontier for different types of problems, orwhich defended them from spells.The article: Archaeological Finds in theArea of Travnik and epe was published175

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by Dr. Stanko Sielski in the Glasnik Zemaljskog muzeja u Bosni i Herzegovina (TheHerald of the National Museum of Bosniaand Herzegovina) in 1931 (31). The articlecovers six pages, organized into six chapters,after which there is a summary in German.There is an Appendix to the article, consisting of 12 tables printed on a separate sheetof paper, marked in Roman numerals from5 to 16, in which there are black and whitesketches of items found, mainly life-size,numbered from 1 to 149, to which the author refers in the textual description. Theseare rare examples of the artistic work of Dr.Stanko Sielski, because his works of art havemostly not been preserved.The first chapter: A Neolithic Settlementin the Valley of the River Bila, begins with abrief description of the site, its geographicalposition and a description of the research.The author goes on to state that flint knives,scrapers, arrows, stone axes, wedges, grindersand hammers fragments of clay pots with orwithout ornamentation were found there. Onthe basis of the items found, the author presumes: our ancestors living on the banks ofthe River Bila easily met their everyday needs.He then states that the research was not systematic, that is that the dig was random, thatthe order of the layers was mainly doubled,and there follows a systematized descriptionof the items found. At the end of this chapter, the author points out that amongst thebronze items he also found a brooch decorated with some form of flower and dots, whichis similar to a brooch or pendant describedby Kellner in his article Remains of RomanSettlements on Ilida, which was publishedin The Herald of the National Museum ofBosnia and Herzegovina, volume 5, 1897, onpage 149, and he concludes that this broochdates from the Roman era.There follows a shorter chapter: BronzeFinds in the Valley of the River Bila, whichdescribes the location of the site, and thefindings of bronze jewellery, consisting of176

twisted necklaces with no ornamentation,

two spiral bracelets, a spiral ring and a double clasp. The third chapter: Bronze Finds inBrezovo Polje, begins with a brief history ofthe discovery and a description of the location of the site of a bronze store, comprising16 celts, 3 spears and one sickle, where allthe items except the sickle have been wellpreserved and covered in beautiful green patina. The textual description of these items isgiven in a clear and systematized table.In the fourth chapter: Bronze finds fromKoriani, there is a description of a well-preserved, ornamented bronze celt (an implement like a chisel or axe head), covered ingreen patina, which was found by a shepherd in the village of Koriani in the countyof Jajce. This is followed by chapter five: Thefind of coins of King Toma, which describesthe location, the circumstances of the discovery, the appearance and details on thehead and tail sides of 13 coins, dating fromthe period of the reign of King Toma (14441461). In the description of the appearanceof these coins, the description of a smallercircle is emphasized, which is found on boththe head and tail sides, of which the authorwrites: He has not noticed any earlier description of these on coins of this type, sohe does not know whether the descriptionhad simply been omitted or other coins ofthis type do not have these circles, but thisunusual feature needs to be noted since thecircle was formed with unusual delicacy.The final, sixth chapter: Medieval findsfrom the Village of Zabilje in Travnik County, gives a presentation of the discoveryand description of two iron spurs and oneiron knife in the fort above the village ofZabilje. The author points out that theseitems were found by the farm labourer Nezir Karahoda, when he was clearing theforest, in a barrow with human bones, andthey were kept on the roof of a house. At theend of this short chapter, the author writes:Knives like this have been found frequently

in pre-historic pile dwellings (Radimsky pile

dwelling near Ripa, Journal, vol. V, page41) as well as amongst Roman remains, butaccording to this find, it is probable thatthese are medieval items.Our Village Golubi a contribution toresearch into health in the village and lifethere is an article published in the journalSocijalno medicinski pregled (Social Medical Review) in 1939, which was published inBelgrade (33). It covers 22 pages in Cyrillicscript, and is illustrated with black and whitesketches, with a summary in German andno literature listed. In it, Dr. Stanko Sielskidescribes the social conditions in the villageof Golubi, which is located near Biha, andsometimes comments on their effect on thehealth of the population.He writes of his choice of that village:This village was chosen because it is onlysix kilometres from the health centre, thatis from the centre of our work, so it is easily accessible. But it was also chosen becausethere are Orthodox and Catholic believersas well as Muslims living together there, soit is interesting not just from a geographical but also from an anthropological andethnographic point of view. There follows ageographical and historical description of thevillage, then chapters on the population, theclimate, the way the land was worked, fruitgrowing, trades, folk costumes, the furnishings of the houses, how rooms are decorated,types of houses, yards, barns, family life andcustoms, the social status of men and women,customs and diet.It is important to point out that in thechapter entitled: The Population, alongsidegeneral information, the author gives specific results of anthropometric measurementsmade, the frequency of blood groups, eyecolours, the shape of shoulder blades, andwhen menstruation begins and ends in thewomen. The folk customs are described inmore detail in this chapter, as practised bythe inhabitants, and this description is ac-

companied by an explanation of their significance. The last chapter: Diet, is the mostextensive and also the most detailed part ofthe article. In the introductory part of thischapter the author gives a detailed description of food production in relation to the religious affiliation of the population, the mostfrequent vegetable and animal food productsraised, how the food produced was preservedand managed, and the diet of the populationin relation to the season, the compositionand number of daily meals, preparation ofwinter preserves, and preparation of themost frequent meals, as well as the opinionsof the inhabitants about their diet.The article is illustrated with black andwhite sketches - grouped in eight units, under each of which there is a brief descriptivetext. The group sketches are located besidethe appropriate text, but are not mentionedin it. They show: various types of houses

Picture 5 Various types of houses.

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(Picture 5), ground plans of Muslim, Catholic and Orthodox homes, various householdobjects, sketches of tattoos on the front andback of Catholic womens hands (Picture 6),graves (stone urns) with ornamental details,details of grave stones, and sketches of various amulets found in the village of Golubi.Although it is not mentioned in the articlewho drew these sketches, it may be assumedwith great assurance that they were drawnby Dr. Stanko Sielski. There is also an original colour drawing of a apotropaic scriptures, found in the village of Golubi, allegedly from the time when the plague was rifein that region (Picture 7).

ConclusionDr. Stanko Sielski spent his entire workinglife in BH, almost exclusively in the interior of the country and at a time burdenedby difficult and complex social and political circumstances. This did not prevent himfrom devoting himself not only to his professional work, but also to scientific researchand publishing. He performed his work as aphysician in a humane manner, contributingto the improvement of the health of the people of BH. His publication work was basedon the results of his own research work inthe fields of the history of medicine, archaeology, ethnology and sociology, which allin all contributed to better knowledge andunderstanding, and the preservation of thematerial and spritiual values of the historicaland cultural heritage of BH.Conflict of interest: The author declares that he hasno conflict of interest.

Picture 6 Tattoos of Catholic women from the village

of Golubi.

Picture 7 Apotropaic scriptures from Golubi allegedly from the time when the plague was rife in thatarea.

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